Duty Obliges
by Steelcircle
Summary: Mirage accepts a black ops mission to Monacus, which makes Jazz worried. Set during G1 S3, sometime after "Grimlock's New Brain".


**Title: **Duty Obliges

**Continuity: **G1 Cartoon

**Rating:** PG-13

**Genre:** Adventure

**Warnings: **Violence

**Summary:** Mirage accepts a black ops mission to Monacus, which makes Jazz worried. (Set during G1 S3, sometime after "Grimlock's New Brain".)

* * *

The lights were always low before handing out assignments like these, mostly to make it harder to call out an Autobot for leaving. Jazz grimly surveyed his gathered troops, not his usual ebullient self. He could tell himself that the war forced him to make requests such as these, but there could have been another way he just was not seeing. The thought always gnawed at him. He said first, "Volunteers only. No shame in getting out now."

Some left. Some always did. Some had left never before. Jazz took note of them, his wide angle visor concealing that he had taken count, but he did not judge them.

Then Jazz said, "It's wetwork."

That was when the dirty looks came out. They always did. Some Autobots could not grok the fact that sometimes, in a war, someone just really needed to die. A whole lot of Autobots who joined Intel joined thinking they could just get away with snapping some photos and counting troops. They thought they would not need to get their hands dirty. A lot of the time, that was the case. Some of the time, the Intel hat came off and the black ops hat came back on, not that it ever really went away. Most of the Autobots left. The few that stayed were the few that Jazz guessed would.

Blaze was a hit-man. He came online as an engineer. If he plied his current trade before the war, Jazz did not want to know about it. Blaze was a likeable enough bot, Jazz supposed. He was happy, really happy and great at his job, too, always pushing himself to do better. Jazz tried not to think too much about what Blaze would do after the war was over.

Excellion, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed and his foot faintly tapping, was not likeable at all. Truth be told, the Decepticons liked Excellion better than the Autobots did. He made an outsider of himself to the Autobots, but he took data retrieval and wetwork jobs with about equal frequency, and he got them done.

Moonracer, sitting up front, had been a sweet enough girl when the Ark left Cybertron. When the Ark crew came back, she had spent millions of years slitting Decepticon throats just to get the energon out to ease the hunger pains of her starved squad. She had seen the kind of experimentation Shockwave did when he did not have supervision. Moonracer could and would put a mad dog down.

Repugnus was new and had already been thrown out of the chair next to Moonracer, by Moonracer, twice. Back in the labs, a team of Autobot engineers had tried to cook up some new Autobots. Monsterbots were what they got. They were loyal but destructive. Repugnus was the biggest creep of an Autobot Jazz had ever met. If Blaze was unnerving in how much he enjoyed his job, Repugnus was straight disturbing 24/7.

Sandstorm, who had thrown Repugnus out of the chair next to him, too, was surprising. He came from a planet of pacifists, and he was the only one there who knew a gun from a spoon. Springer was shocked when his new recon man proved as good at caving in heads as he was at counting them. Sandstorm's liaisons with Octane - of course Jazz knew; the kid was fooling himself to think otherwise - put his loyalties into question, but his effectiveness was not in question one bit.

Mirage, as far away from everyone else as he could be and still be in the back, was a joke. He stayed and listened every time, nosy little snoop, but Jazz had never seen him take a wetwork mission. Oh, it was not that he was a coward. Mirage would steal Galvatron's cannon right off his arm, though he would turn his nose up to be asked to play the lowly thief. He would kill guards he ran into, if he had to, or soldiers on the field of combat. Mirage just never took wetwork missions, though he listened to every single one. Jazz would have thrown him out, but he was Mirage. Jazz could never be sure he was gone.

Then Mirage the joke said something really hilarious, "I'll do it."

"You ain't even heard the mission," Jazz said coolly. He did not know what game Mirage was playing, and he did not like it one bit.

Excellion cut a scornful glance over at Mirage. Moonracer quirked an optical ridge, looking back. New as they were, neither Sandstorm nor Repugnus knew enough to know that Mirage was just here for the scuttlebutt, but that did not stop Repugnus. He heckled, "What, the pretty-boy thinks he can play?"

Mirage ignored Repugnus entirely, as if the young Monsterbot was beneath his dignity. He said again, "I don't need to hear the specifications. I'll do it."

"It's wetwork," Jazz repeated, giving Mirage a hard look, "You don't do wetwork."

"Read my file and don't make me repeat myself," Mirage countered imperiously.

"If he's too slotting _good _to get his hands dirty, why's he here?" Repugnus demanded.

Moonracer shot Repugnus a foul look. She was from a close-knit team and took poorly to Autobot in-fighting. Jazz knew she had bigger concerns, such as just staying alive day to day. Insults, true or not, were a waste of her time.

Taking out his datapad, Jazz pulled up Mirage's file and looked at it again. For someone who was with the Autobots since the start of the war, it was a pretty short file. Mirage spent an awful lot of his time doing things even Jazz was not cleared to know. The blacked out portions bothered Jazz, but he learned to just go with it. Then Mirage was at his shoulder, and he lazily tapped in an information release code on his file. Not all of those black spots filled, but some did, and Jazz frowned at what he saw. Under previous Intel chiefs, Mirage had... well, that was interesting. Jazz gave Mirage a hard look and asked, "Why now?"

"My reasons are my own," Mirage replied, frosty and affronted to even be questioned.

Jazz grimaced at his datapad for a while. Then he looked back up and replied, "Then you got it. Next."

* * *

"What? You're on _leave_?" Cliffjumper asked incredulously. He seemed to disapprove of the whole concept of leave.

Mirage sighed and kept a straight face. He reassured, "Not for very long. I have a duty I must carry out as a noble. Allowances are made for such things."

Cliffjumper snorted, "What, like a religious holiday?"

"Something like," Mirage agreed, smiling faintly. Commoners were so naïve.

"So you haul out and pray at some shrine?" Cliffjumper scoffed. He didn't think very highly of the idea, that was clear.

Mirage looked away and agreed, "I will pray."

He detested wetwork, as a rule. The spilling of fuel was so uncivilised and beneath him. Any Transformer with half a processor should have been able to see that life immortal was the greatest gift, and like any gift, should only be given, never stolen. Now was not the time for such debates, however.

Mirage always washed himself thoroughly, but this time, he even cracked out the abrasives when he performed his ablutions, until he was completely cleansed. He spent a Golden Age day, sundown to sundown, if only there was a still a sun to measure it by, without any form of fuel. He made his offerings and said words he did not believe at one of those new non-denominational churches Rodimus Prime had installed, mostly for the sake of visiting aliens. It was not right, it was not right at all, but the cathedral Mirage needed no longer existed. He was as purified and sanctified as he could make himself, a formality he always found foolish, given what he was meant to do. Mirage found it ridiculous how knights were held up as pinnacles of purity, when they were nothing more than thugs with better design work and weapons than the other thugs.

He almost bumped into another Autobot, in a hurry reach his shuttle. Mirage turned and looked, taking in the other Autobot, Rodimus Prime! Doubtless he was returning from on his peace talks. He looked exhausted, but Mirage petitioned anyway, "Please, a blessing." Mirage rarely said 'please' sincerely, but he meant it this time.

Rodimus Prime looked both weary and confused at the request, but after a moment, something like understanding dawned in his optics. He touched his chest, as if mindful of the Matrix inside, and he answered, "Uum... yeah. I can do that. You're going into danger, aren't you?" He glanced over at shuttle where Mirage was headed.

"I am," Mirage said agreeably, though a little voice told him that he was not going into danger. He _was_the danger, coming back into himself. Mirage ignored the voice and gave the Prime a polite smile, not too warm, not fawning.

"All right," Rodimus Prime started, his gaze far away, as if he was trying to remember something. He touched Mirage lightly on the front of his helm and intoned, his voice firmer, "You do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the orphaned and break the arm of the wicked. As for the evil man, seek out his wickedness until you find none," which was a traditional battle blessing on some parts of Cybertron before the war, perhaps a memory given to the young Prime from the Matrix. Then Rodimus looked more the child his age made him and added almost shyly, "And uhm, be careful, Mirage."

Mirage kept his polite smile and murmured, "Thank you, Prime." A Prime's blessing was not part of the rites at all, but Mirage had put his faith in a Prime before. He was too arrogant to say he was wrong then or wrong now. The blessing felt right. Then Mirage tarried no longer.

* * *

Filthy, clouded with the sour scent of impure libations and ambiguous fluids ground into the floor with the dirt, this hovel of a bar was no place for Mirage to be. There was something revoltingly soft and squishy under his foot, and he was uncertain if it was leftovers of a dumped repast or something worse. Monacus was an absolutely miserable place, Sheol most especially. The suffering of alien species was all around, from the Arcadroid just outside the bar huddling under rags to the downcast Rock Lord slaves Mirage saw led off to market, heavy chains binding their necks, wrists, and ankles, forcing them into a mincing shuffle.

His contact looked absolutely delighted to see Mirage, as if Mirage was light after a thousand years of darkness. Mirage knew he was the best company on this Matrix-forsaken rock, but it really was a bit much. He pushed himself back against the wall, soiled as it was, to avoid an open-armed gesture that looked suspiciously like a hug. His contact enthused, "I'm Devcon. You must be Mirage!"

Devcon really did not say it all that loudly, and he did look to see that no one was paying whit one of attention to them. Still, Mirage hissed lowly, "Not so loud. You'll wake the dead." It was the principle of the thing.

Devcon looked as if Mirage stung him. Clearly the bounty hunter was deprived of proper Autobot contact, a regretful side-effect of the war. Devcon took on a more suitable tone of voice and continued, "You have an updated brief for me?"

Mirage slid the datastick into Devcon's open and eager hand and grimaced when the touch took a little longer than strictly necessary. Devcon did not need to know all of the plan, but he needed to know his portion well enough that he would not disappoint Mirage or, worse, the ones they were meant to rescue. Lord Gyconi possessed a group of Autobots again: Grapple, Hound, Outback, and Hoist, taken by raiders while they were working on a deep space outpost and bought for a tidy sum. Devcon and Mirage were Autobots. Rescuing their own always came first. Devcon did not need to know about objectives two and three. He was a lawman, and some necessities went beyond the laws.

Devcon reviewed his brief and asked Mirage, "You're sure you don't need more help than that?" He looked Mirage in the optics, as if searching for something. He would not find it.

"Just be there and get the victims out of harm's way. I will be a while in extricating myself. Do not be concerned," Mirage said stiffly, though Devcon clearly was, "Now. You are to tell me of some alternate entrances to this Pit of Destruction?"

* * *

Despair permeated the arena underground. The guards were cruel from ill-use, and in turn, they ill-used the slaves. Mirage would be hard-pressed to disapprove further. Still, he supposed they had not asked for their lot, and they were not Decepticons. So when he stole the new shift guard's face with his electro-disruptor, he left him alive in a cleaning closet, gagged and bound. In Mirage's opinion, that cleaning closet needed to see far more use than it did and not as a handy spot for dumping bodies.

His electro-disruptor allowed him to do more than just turn invisible, though some people tended to forget it could do anything beyond making a big box of nothing. He could give himself the illusion of a different physical appearance, too. In cases where Mirage actually had to open doors, that functionality was quite welcome.

Grapple was in pieces, laid out on a table. Mirage bit his lip and checked him over to see if his lasercore still held the charge of life. Those held in the cell paid him no mind because they had no minds with which to pay him. Stripping the will to rebel from a Transformer was a disturbingly easy process. Mirage had paid top dollar for his own firewalls and mental defences, and still, worry stirred in his lasercore. Could he, Mirage, scion of one of Cybertron's noblest lines, be laid so low? What Bombshell had done to him was unspeakable. He would not let it happen to himself again.

The architect lived, and Mirage counted that a success in and of itself. He moved off to Hound's cell next, frowning under his false face. Hound was the least damaged, the most warlike of the quartet, and he would be of use in carrying Grapple's pieces. Though Mirage did not agree with Hound's zealous love of Earth, that ridiculous ball of dirt, its cities so flat, he had a respect for the commoner's abilities and skills all the same. If Hound was not so foolishly fond of animals, Mirage would have invited him along on a hunt, a rare honour he dispensed to only a few. He suspected seeing Hound on the trail of a wily turbofox would be pure poetry in motion. To see the tracker reduced to mindless slavery pulled at Mirage and hardened his resolve.

The door was locked when he tried to open it. The guard whose face he wore did not have keys on him, and a quick search of the caging area told him there were no keys to be found. Mirage grimaced and pulled out his electronic rake, hoping the lock would yield. The lock was of a better quality than he suspected and would not yield to the rough raking. Blackly, Mirage thought about what sort of man would spend such money on a lock and not on the upkeep of those beholden to him. When Mirage had reigned over his own territory, he was cold and distant, aloof and apart from the common Transformer, but he always made certain that his people had the best of care, from the lowliest scullery maid and the villeins who worked his energon farms to the knights of lower orders who answered to him. There was little crime in his lands. Mirage saw to that personally.

Putting the rake away, he withdrew his picks, delicately setting the electronic tumblers with a deft and practiced hand. The lock surrendered to his will with a gratifying click, and the energy bars dissolved away. Hound did not even look at him, expression completely blank. Aping the guard's voice, Mirage commanded, "You there. Slave. Carry the pieces of that one," he pointed to Grapple's pieces, "but gently."

Hound did as he was bade, his motions overly mechanical. Mirage had already moved onto Outback's cell while Hound picked up the pieces. Outback was face down in the grimy straw, sodden by a pool of his own fluids leaked from his grievous injuries, and Mirage feared for him as he had feared for Grapple. Yet Outback lived. Mirage left him there just a moment to release Hoist, who was not in quite so good a condition as Hound, but he was still walking. Mirage directed Hoist to carry Outback, and soon, they were assembled to go.

Rounding a corner, a shocked looking guard greeted them. Mirage had rehearsed excuses and takedowns equally in his head, but he did not need either of them. The guard sunk to his knees and then fell entirely over, courtesy of Devcon. Before Devcon could make Mirage the next one down, Mirage dropped his disguise, which was just as well. His six minute timer was running low. Devcon grinned brilliantly and said, "I'll take them from here. You do... what you have to."

Mirage said softly, "I will," and ducked away into hiding to let his electro-disruptor recharge before he tackled his second task.

* * *

From Lord Gyconi's perspective, one of his favourite mistresses had come to greet him. From Mirage's perspective, he wanted to violently eject the contents of his fuel tanks. This Gyconi was no lord at all, Mirage decided. He was completely and utterly revolting in how he treated his slaves, his hirelings, and even those with whom he was supposedly intimate. His practises were completely and utterly despicable.

Some kind of oozy slime stained Mirage's plating before so much as a, 'Hello.'

It did not make pulling out that anonymous black market weapon and putting two shots into Gyconi's redundant primary brains and then one through his book lungs any easier. Gyconi was certainly a lower order of being than even the worst of humans, never mind Cybertronians, but he was alive and sapient, and that was something. He deserved to die, but he was not worthy of prolonged torture by Cybertronian gutter scum, let alone a quick, easy death at the hands of a Cybertronian noble.

Mirage smiled radiantly through his mask at the guards. An elbow hit to the plexus bent one over in pain and lack of breath, and it did not take much for Mirage to lever the one into the other. He was not strong, but he knew how to move and how to make others move as he wished. They were just guards. He would have left them alive anyway, but he especially left alive now because someone had to see and report what Gyconi's 'mistress' had done to him.

He was not worried about her. Her criminal reputation and aura of fear would soar when the news broke, and dourly, Mirage figured that she probably would take over Gyconi's criminal empire. The important thing was that an Autobot could not traced back to this job. Rodimus Prime, brokering peace in the universe, did not and could not know what black ops did while his back was turned and his hands held out, empty, free of weapons, and welcoming. He bought peace and freedom with his words; black ops bought safety in blood.

The Quintessons made slaves of them once. The Decepticons toyed with it now and then. Never again. Even now, Moonracer and Excellion were out hunting Orbs, the slavers who captured a younger Kup on Dread long ago.

Mirage outpaced the guards easily and found himself a hidey hole to let his electro-disruptor rest. He prepared himself for the last of his three tasks. Checking paranoidly to make sure he was as safe as he could be, he withdrew a small case, slid out his left optic, and replaced it with a regal yellow one. There was a slight feeling of pain when the blue came out, a surge of contained terror at the half-darkness, and a burn as the yellow fitted back in. Then he did the other, and he felt so much better and refreshed.

He suffered migraines, now and again. The commoners dismissed it as merely Mirage being an effete noble of delicate temperament, but he had never been meant to see with commoner's blue. The hardware and software all checked out; there was nothing _wrong_with Mirage. Breeding would always out, however, and his breeding punished him with migraines for stooping to wear blue. To don his noble yellow again was always such a sweet relief, even if they were terribly unfashionable in the Iacon of old and the new Iacon that stood now.

Then he snapped on a blue magnetic half-mask, dark around those sharp yellow optics, girded himself with invisibility, and Mirage was as ready as he could be. Everything had been far too easy today, even for one so consummately skilled as he, so he was certain it was about to get very hard indeed, which was just what he needed to satisfy his heritage.

* * *

Mirage was a stuck-up little snot, and Cliffjumper wished he was here as he sat at the security console. He was listening to Blurr go on and on about the slagging price of tyres in Tau Ceta. At least, that was what Cliffjumper thought Blurr was going on about. He might have switched to the Swan Lake ballet in Cygnus, how Sky Lynx wanted to try out even though Blurr did not think Sky Lynx was cut out for ballet. Maybe he was actually discussing how bad Minesweeper: the Movie was and why in the world Rodimus Prime held him still long enough to make him watch it.

Cliffjumper would have just turned his audios off, but a lot of the security equipment made noise he had to hear, not that he could hear it all that well under Blurr's nonstop chatter. It made him miss Mirage's snobbery, Perceptor's big words, and even Bluestreak. Ever a master of the unwise, Cliffjumper tried to get a word in edgewise, "Mirage was supposed to be standing this watch with me. Until he pulled leave. That glitch."

"Oh, oh, what's he doing, do you know? Is he going on vacation to Monaco, I hear Monaco is really nice this time of year, and they have helicopters carry your luggage, not that Mirage would have luggage, he has subspace, but oh, what is he doing?" Blurr asked. It was a lot to take in, but Cliffjumper got the gist of it.

He did not really want to be talking about what stupid Mirage was doing on his stupid holiday, but it let Cliffjumper say something, so he did, "Oh, he's doing some dumb noble thing."

Blurr looked intrigued and launched into another screed of babble, "Like a knight's quest? He's going to ride out and slay a space dragon and rescue a princess - "

"No!" Cliffjumper said hotly. The idea of Mirage bagging a princess rather bothered him, for some reason. "He's just going to go pray at some dumb church."

Blurr started again, "Then what you meant to say is that Mirage is going on a pilgrimage, I see, do you recall the time that Springer tried to get leave, claiming he was a Jedi and May the Fourth was a holy day for him?"

Cliffjumper thought to himself, _It never ends._

* * *

The Pit of Destruction was in a right shambles and panic, which was a pity. Gyconi kicking the bucket in a lover's spat was fine, but one certain free agent was hoping to get his hook into some of those mods when those Autobots finally kicked the bucket. They were kind of a runty lot, but Hound's holograms would have been a nice addition to his collection. Some Transformers believed in life after death; Lockdown believed in recycling.

Though, the shadows just were not laying quite right over yonder, and Lockdown did not think any of the guards and patrons would have moved a whole wall in the chaos. Maybe it could be so. He switched to thermal, a little gem he had picked up out of an Autobot on Azure. There was a little sneak tucked away in those shadows, probably thinking he was pretty clever. Maybe his day was looking up. He launched a sleep net just to be on the safe side.

Nothing at all in the visual spectrum dodged under the net, though Lockdown picked up plenty on thermal and the scrapes along the grime of the floor were a tell-tale giveaway. He had an active camo mod, but given that it shorted out in the rain, he was always looking for a nice upgrade. Almost lazily, he pulled the fire alarm to check the goods and stomped down on the sneak's back.

Lockdown would have, anyway, if the spook did not twist to the side and grab his ankle before it could touch the floor. Brute strength let Lockdown take his leg back, but it was not a bad attempt at a flip. With a creak, the sprinklers came on, showering the hallway with rust-stained, stinking water. The invisible man did not so much as flicker in visual, his cloak beautifully seamless, though the water hitting him cooled his thermal. Lockdown definitely wanted that cloak mod now.

So he went for the nova spray, which would leave the sucker's armour brittle as fine Chomskian china, all the better to crack out the delicious components inside. Before Lockdown could flick out the nozzle, one of the fragger's hands was on his lower arm, pushing it away. His other arm was going for his neck, in a headlock, and that just would not do. Lockdown said easily, "Hey, don't you want to come out and play?" and tried to bury his chainsaw in the other's back.

His opponent, a slender, nimble fellow, ducked down between Lockdown's legs, grabbed his knee as he skidded behind, and slammed him to the floor. His chainsaw bit into the cheap stone, kicking up shards, and Lockdown mocked, "Gonna take that as a 'no', then." He cracked out the EMP.

* * *

Jazz stepped into the monitor-lit darkness where Red Alert holed himself up in most of his free time, which was possibly more impressive than the real security room. Red Alert was not at all jumpy as Jazz approached him. It had taken a while for Jazz to understand that did not mean Red Alert was actually comfortable. It just meant that Red Alert had heard him coming from two miles away. Jazz was a little sad that he could never get Red Alert to loosen up, but he would manage it someday, he was sure.

Red Alert turned around slowly in his chair and asked, before Jazz could say anything, "What do you need, Jazz?"

"This is strictly off the record, y'understand," Jazz started. He paused, a bit put off by the grin Red Alert gave him.

Red Alert coughed and recovered something of a normal expression, prompting, "You're going to ask me about Mirage."

Jazz narrowed his visor and glared at Red Alert, who just gave him an innocent look. Under Jazz's sustained glare, he finally protested, "I analyse patterns. The hallway feeds are within my security classification. Mirage has a certain walk when he's leaving on a mission, but he left the room with Blaze, Excellion, Moonracer, Repugnus, and Sandstorm. When he leaves the room at the same time as they do - and he usually does - he doesn't walk like he's leaving for a mission, so you're either going to ask me about Mirage, or you're going to ask me where Ambassador Witwicky's left socks have been going."

"It's not the socks," Jazz admitted, rubbing his chin to hide a half-smile.

"Well?" Red Alert asked, peering at Jazz curiously. His blue optics were wide, dilated, and pale in the dark. Jazz did not want to know how long Red Alert had been sitting there.

"Mirage filled in some of the gaps in his file for me," Jazz said slowly, "I'd like you take a look at it for me."

Red Alert greedily snatched up the datastick and slotted it into a datapad. Jazz recognised it as an expendable datapad, the kind Red Alert used when he was not sure a datastick was clean, which was always. Red Alert looked over the dossier, licking his lips lightly, and after a moment, he snapped his fingers and swivelled around to pull up a timeline on another screen. He explained, "If you take out the nap you took on Earth, and you look at how often Mirage takes wetwork jobs, it's always at least once every vorn," 83 Earth years, "and if you pull up the lounge feed, when he was saying his goodbyes to Cliffjumper, he talks about carrying out a duty as a noble."

"That's just his cover," Jazz explained.

"No, no," Red Alert insisted, "Look at the microexpressions. It's obvious. Er, I, well, if you could see them, anyway." He looked back and gave Jazz an apologetic smile. "Anyway, I'm not a betting man, and I know Mirage is a good liar, but I don't think he is there, especially because if you look at the spaceport feeds - "

Jazz frowned and said gently, "Mirage wouldn't like it if he heard you're following him like this."

Red Alert laughed, slapped his knee, and then sobered up. He corrected, "I follow everyone. You want to know how many times you've had a lampshade on your head?" Red Alert tapped a button, and shots of Jazz with a lampshade on his head filled many monitors of the room, each picture unique.

Jazz walked over to the nearest image, tapped it, and remarked, "I look pretty good in these, if I gotta say it myself."

"You just did," Red Alert agreed beatifically, "I stay within my security clearance. I'm equal opportunity. Biases just get in my way. Now, as I was saying." He tapped at one of his keyboard and pulled up that spaceport footage. "He asks Rodimus Prime for a blessing, which fits within the scope of the hypothesis that Mirage views his assignment as a quest as befitting his status as a noble."

"Red Alert..." Jazz sighed, thinking that perhaps Red Alert had gone off in the wrong direction with this train of thought.

"But it's the vorn periodicity that clinches it, if you're at all familiar with pre-war noble customs," Red Alert continued, bringing up an article on the subject.

* * *

Lockdown was objective number three, the bounty hunter who captured and sold those Autobots to Gyconi. He was doubtless planning to loot their bodies for parts. Such depredations could not be tolerated. They could take him alive and put him away in a little box. Even the worst of boxed criminals, such as the Combaticons, tended to escape. Getting rid of such filth permanently, off the record, was really the best that could be done in a bad situation.

He also fit neatly into a noble duty Mirage was compelled to fulfil. Most Autobots knew Mirage was a noble. Few remembered that those titles had been bought in spilled energon. Nobility was what happened when conquerors settled down to rule the survivors. When Mirage said he was of one of Cybertron's noblest lines, the other Autobots heard it as, 'Mirage is a fop with too many credits.' They should have heard it as, 'Mirage hails from a design line of very effective and charismatic killers.' He could claim it was the social contract, that nobles were meant to protect their people with their own lives or they were not worthy of their titles and associated privileges. He could claim any number of things. Mirage knew how he was programmed, and right now, he needed this. Such was his duty to protect his people. His territories and subjects were gone. No one would seriously try to hold him to the old ways. There was something to be said for tradition, however. It separated him from those who had none, so he claimed to himself, when the burden of his code became too much to bear. The Autobots were his people to protect now, an honour he would never let them know he had bestowed upon them. That once a vorn execution to satiate his mind's demands would be for them, no matter how it sullied his hands and wearied his soul. He could kill more often than that, of course. Sometimes Mirage did. If he tried to go longer without taking a life, however, something in the back of his head started to itch. Mirage had his function, for all that he wished to deny it. Deep down, he knew what he was made to do.

Now Mirage just needed to shake off that nasty case of paralysis he had come down with courtesy of that EMP, and he would get right to it. Lockdown stood over him with the air of someone rummaging through subspace. He mused aloud, "Now do I do the sleep net or the stasis cuffs?"

As a racer build, Mirage burned through sedation quickly. He chose his form for exactly that reason, but even then, some racers burned it more quickly than others. In that respect, Mirage was much like a hellhound he had once kept.

* * *

_Marquess the hellhound was Mirage's little joke. It would not do to keep a pet that outranked him, but the animal was a subtle slight on almost all of his visitors. Marquess was Mirage's little way of saying that his pets were of more worth than most other Transformers. He was a glorious beast with a lean, jagged build and bright red markings against his black. The foundry that produced him had done a superb job. He was tenacious in tracking a target and loyal to a fault._

_The poor, faithful hellhound took a shot that the other hunter claimed had gone astray, but that Mirage, in his darker moments, thought was quite meant for him. Mirage swore to Marquess that he would make it right and took him to the veterinarian promptly. His usual was unavailable, but the other came recommended enough even for Mirage's scrutiny at the time._

_"Marquess is a hellhound. They're an exotic build," Mirage informed the veterinarian. "You must sedate him carefully. He is much like a windhound. You cannot give him too much at once, but he will take more in total than you would think. His metabolism is very high."_

_The veterinarian nodded along. The veterinarian did not listen. Marquess came out of sedation far too quickly, in terrible pain, just as Mirage warned. The veterinarian never practised again. Mirage did not end his life, but he did take it from him all the same._

_After an attempted kidnapping, Mirage pushed his surgeons to tweak him further than just the racer build. Woozy, he took two shots to take down the scoundrel who drugged his drink, and then he collapsed on his face in public. The shame was too much to bear, and he vowed it would never happen to him again._

_His high metabolism mostly just made a neat party trick, aside from a capture here and there. He remembered the Ark crew, and a time some of the rougher members were drinking some disgusting homemade swill. Sideswipe called him out, "Aw, look, posh boy's turned his nose up. Hey, is it stuck like that?"_

_Ironhide heckled, "He couldn't hold his energon if he used both hands."_

_Mirage twitched as if struck across the face. They did not even deserve to look at him, let alone challenge him, but he stalked across silently to their pile of foul bottles, picked out a full one marked 'XXX' and downed it in one go. The nauseating taste would not be long on his tongue that way. He stayed steady, a sneer on his face, and shot back, "I do not drink libations such as yours because I find them as weak as lamp oil, you cretins."_

_He walked out, and never was there a straighter line walked._

* * *

Lockdown stowed away his sleep net and finally decided, "Stasis cuffs." One cuff clicked around Mirage's wrist, painfully tight, and he felt numbness seep through his body even as he tried to shake off that EMP. He regained motor control enough on the other side just in time to bring out his hunting knife as the second cuff started to close. Mirage jammed the blade into the cuff's locking mechanism, and the cuffs sizzled and crackled most spectacularly.

While Lockdown was backing away, Mirage pried the fried cuffs from his hands and flung them at Lockdown before burying the knife in his EMP generator. There, one cut for the rite. First fuel. Last fuel was the fuel that would matter.

"Oi, I took that off an antique! They don't make them like that anymore," Lockdown grumbled, and he swept Mirage's legs with a sonic javelin held like a stave.

If his circuits were not so sluggish from the EMP and the stasis cuffs, Lockdown's sweep would never have connected, Mirage told himself, soothing his wounded pride. When he deigned to participate, Mirage was one of the finest at hand to hand combat that the Autobots had. Even Cliffjumper admitted it. The best thing for shaking off the numbness was to get his motor running and keep moving. From the ground, Mirage hooked his ankle around Lockdown's and slammed his other foot on Lockdown's ankle joint, cracking it. Lockdown went down on one knee with a heavy _whump_, not falling over entirely as Mirage had intended.

Of course Lockdown was good, a strong and dangerous mark. Killing a weakling cur would be dishonourable and a waste of his talents. If this was not a real fight, Mirage would have to go again to scratch his itch, and he detested do-overs. Mirage cloaked, though he suspected he was being watched anyway.

Lockdown skewered him to the wall with a sonic javelin. Mirage hissed in pain and shuddered as waves of sonic energy shook through his body, jarring his internals loose. There was the answer to his question of the matter of Lockdown's vision, though perhaps not in the package he sought. Mirage grasped the haft and pulled the sonic javelin out of his torso. Vibrating like it was, it would do more damage in than out, no matter how inelegant he was in removal. Then Mirage used the javelin like a pole vault, grabbed one of the lights from the ceiling and brought it crashing down into Lockdown's face.

Any light up in any optics would hurt. A hot light up in optics that saw in thermal vision, too? That usually did the trick nicely. Lockdown cursed, "You motherboard fragging, tyre-shredding, wick-licking _dandy_."

Mirage landed and took a few stumbling steps away, almost slipping on the drenched floor. Once he had the distance he needed, he withdrew his rifle and took barely a moment to sight it before firing.

* * *

"Bein' noble doesn't give you a licence to kill," Jazz argued. Red Alert had delved off into nonsense again, like Jazz was afraid he would.

"On the contrary, it gives them a duty to kill," Red Alert explained, paging through some more articles on the screen. "They get to live in nice palaces and eat fancy fuel because they're the ones out there risking their necks for the common man. In theory. In practise, it's more often that they're the ones causing problems and getting away with it."

"Not in Iacon," Jazz corrected. He was not one to judge, but in Iacon, the nobles seemed more likely to die of syk overdose than out there doing anything useful.

Red Alert grinned at him again and asked, "Who ever said Mirage is _from_ Iacon? Or even Praxus or Stanix. Or anywhere that you might think he could call home. In a great deal of places, such as Corumkan, Helex, Kaon, Vos, Tarn, and _Polyhex_, nobles were either considered above the law or an extension of the law. I know Mirage had Iaconian citizenship and a number of properties there, but he also had citizenship in Uraya, Tyrest, Mebion - "

"Red Alert..." Jazz said warningly.

" - and Polyhex!" Red Alert crowed, truncating the long list of everywhere Mirage held citizenship. "Where the nobility were judge, jury, and executioner by design and never lost their martial edge like the nobility of other city states did. Rumour has it, they were hardwired to need to kill, the way that a medic has to repair patients or an engineer must build." Self-depreciatingly, he finished, "The way I always listen."

Jazz gave Red Alert a funny look and said very slowly, "You're saying Mirage is a slotting _Death Knight_?"

* * *

Lockdown went grey in a moment. In another moment, his colours returned, and he growled, "That almost hurt, trinket."

"How many lives do you have?" Mirage murmured, shifting his electro-disruptor not to cloak him but to make him appear shifted to the left slightly. He could see the shot was good; Lockdown's wound showed those characteristic pieces of lasercore. Mirage could even smell the distinctive stench of a burned lasercore. Yet Lockdown lived. Mirage refused to panic.

Panic would just get his hands grabbed and his body slammed up against the wall again. Lockdown pressed him hard and tight, metal grinding on metal as paint scraped away. He smirked wickedly and said, "Nine lives, kitty-cat. I'm thinking I'll take you alive. Took you for a noble snot, but you ain't a bad hand in a fight. You'll crack eventually. They all do, and when they do, it ain't no trouble just to slide into that vacant lasercore and soak up all the memories and skills of a lifetime. Gotta love redundant systems, am I right?"

How could anyone speak so casually of the rapine and plunder of minds and souls? Unbridled revulsion surged in Mirage. Lockdown bore down heavily, close enough for Mirage to smell the stench of his exhaust. Mirage wanted an emergency tank voiding so very badly, to try to get the sick taste out of his mouth, but he needed that fuel. He had burned so much already just shaking that EMP. Lockdown had brute strength going for him. Strength for strength, Mirage could never match him. He slammed a foot down on Lockdown's already weakened ankle. At the same time, Mirage jammed his wrists down against Lockdown's thumbs, which were easier to force open than trying to break all of his fingers at once. In the fleeting moment of release, Mirage slipped away.

Lockdown heckled, "What kinda file allocation tables you use, sweetness? I'd hate to take the time to turn you into gibbering mush and find out we're incompatible." He clipped Mirage with the nova spray, aiming wide.

Mirage's fingers smarted; he had broken a few just escaping from Lockdown's grasp. Now they crumbled like dust, down to the stripped and bare wires as the spray embrittled his metal. He tried to think where some of those redundant lasercores might be hiding, and a dreadful idea occurred to him as the nova spray's effects travelled up his arm, cracking his plating away. Lockdown could not hide his lasercores if he had no armour to conceal them. Mirage drew his skinning knives.

* * *

"N-no, I wouldn't call Mirage a Death Knight," Red Alert said circumspectly, "That would be insulting to his unique cultural heritage. 'Death Knight' is just a slurr the Gygaxians devised. I'd call him a Knight of Xal, although he was probably higher ranked than a mere knight. I'm guessing a baron, at least, maybe a count."

Jazz rubbed his temples and admitted, "I just wanted to look into this because when an Autobot who sneers that wetwork is beneath his dignity suddenly takes a mission, I get to worrying, y'know? When it turns out he's been doin' it all along, just not frequently enough to notice, I really get to worrying. Don't want to see Mirage crack and go off the deep end. He's hard to get along with, sure, but he's a good Autobot inside." Jazz made a face. "I think."

Red Alert stood up and leaned in close, voice so low Jazz could barely hear Red Alert whisper, "I just assume everyone's guilty of something. I find it saves a lot of time."

* * *

Skinning an enemy alive was cruelty itself, but Mirage needed to know where those lasercores were. He recalled how he once observed Hot Rod futilely trying to skin a fish he had caught. The youth mumbled something about how Kup said it would be dinner for Daniel, since Hot Rod forgot to make the grocery run for his ward earlier. Mirage took pity on Hot Rod and showed him how it was done. To think that callow boy was now a Prime! Earth fish were easy skinning compared to Cybertron's fauna.

Lockdown trying to break his back made it even harder. His abdominal plating splintered, but his central support strut bent instead of breaking. There was one of the blessings of flexibility, even if his comparatively light and fragile armour was quite possibly killing him now. Lockdown's left lower leg plating came away. Mirage managed to hook a skinning knife into the cables for the one lasercore he saw exposed before being forced to withdraw.

Mirage recalled the tale of Beta and the Five-Faced General. He was but a page when he first saw the tale, set in brightly coloured crystals in the Darkmount Cathedral. There, the General had been rendered as a great space dragon with five heads. As the story went, Beta had snuck in under the cover of darkness and beheaded all of the General's heads, killing him and winning a great battle for her people without risk to her men. Now the historians said the General in question was probably a Quintesson Judge, neither a dragon nor a general. Beta probably was not a great hulking war machine or possessed of an alternate mode at all, for that matter.

The lesson remained the same. In the face of impossible odds, get sneaky. Mirage had to sacrifice one of his own arms in the process, but jamming Lockdown's nova spray down his own gullet was much quicker and more effective than trying to skin him by hand.

* * *

When Devcon had the last of the control devices out of the Autobots, he considered going back for Mirage. Hoist was busy looking after Grapple and Outback, insisting that his own injuries were not too bad at all. He would have been fretting over Hound, too, but reassembling Grapple while tending the Minibot was enough to keep Hoist busy.

Devcon paced the small hangar where his ship and the Autobots were hiding, and he looked over at the hangar doors. Mirage told him to he would be a while in coming. Devcon was not supposed to go looking for him. He headed for the doors anyway. Hound tapped him in the lower arm and offered, "If you're going looking for Mirage, you'll need me."

Devcon shook his head and reminded, "I shouldn't. None of you are in any shape for a fight. We just got you out."

"I could go looking on my own. I'm not in that rough a shape," Hound said.

Devcon did not like that idea and repeated, "You're especially in no shape alone. We'll wait a little longer, but if I have to go out, I want you here to protect the others, you understand?"

* * *

"To Beta, mother of warriors I commend thee," Mirage croaked out, following the forms to the last, "and to Xal, father of pain, I condemn thee."

Then he collapsed, hoping that Lockdown would stay down. Mirage could do a great deal with one arm, but with one arm and no legs, he was considerably more limited. He tied off a few of the bigger leaks, wincing at how the ragged edges of the chainsaw wound smarted. A clean cut would not hurt that much, but the pain provided a welcome distraction.

Mirage needed to call Devcon before he leaked out entirely. As it was, he was not sure Devcon would make it on time to make a difference even if he called right this moment. He needed to snap off that magnetic mask and swap out his optics. He needed to do many things.

Most of all, he needed to convince himself that he had not enjoyed all that one whit, that a life was a life, and that every death was a tragedy, even the slaying of a monster. Mirage was a good liar, charming and manipulative. Why was this so hard?

Mirage had always been difficult, though, as his forebears reminded him often and with manifest disapproval. They would be delighted to hear their little hunter had a taste for the most dangerous game. He refused it so often in his youth.

* * *

_"This is an outrage," Mirage said, though he had not fully made Mirage his name yet, "I am and remain the Duke of the Far Reaches."_

_"A proper Duke would do what he must for his people," the royals above him, his liege lords, told him._

_"But I have! They are safe and happy and productive, and I have increased my fortunes tenfold - " he tried to protest. Mirage had killed for them, too, discreetly. He was not so gauche and outré as to mount heads on pikes, but he made bandits vanish all the same._

_His lords would not have it. "The new Duke will kill you, anyway, for daring to return."_

_Not if Mirage had anything to say about it, he thought. He almost felt sorry for that worthless wretch who was meant to be his replacement. Such a matter could only end in an arena, in spilled fuel and a greyed corpse. Mirage had fought for titles before. In Polyhex, nobles were created as pages. Some never progressed beyond that servant role, but there were two ways to progress. Whenever one of a higher rank, in that case, a squire, died, the most promising of pages would fill that squire's role. If a page was feeling a bit more ambitious, killing a squire would allow him to take his position right then and there. From page to squire, squire to knight, knight to baron, baron to count, count to marquess, and marquess to Duke of the Far Reaches, Mirage had worked his way up. Sometimes, he had taken advantage of vacancies. Sometimes, he had created vacancies himself. How could Mirage, one who had so much, justify allowing the peasants who had so little to labour under a madman like Cannibaron when Mirage had within his means a method of rectifying the situation? The Autobots he later joined never would have understood what was a matter of honour and personal responsibility then._

_So Mirage met his erstwhile replacement in the arena, under the bright Golden Age sun. No mercy was dispensed in Darkmount, only death. It was wrong then._

* * *

"Why wasn't it wrong now?" Mirage asked aloud, the last thought on his processor when blackness took him and the first thought when he awoke, though he knew why. The itch in his mind was gone, his murderous programming sated for the time being. A cyber violin sang in the hands of a skilled musician, for that was its function. So his body sang when he fulfilled his function, too, no matter how he tried to forget. His legs were still off, but he was in an Autobot medical ward. Mirage covered for his slip, voice lower, "My word, how long have I been out? I was on Monacus... this can only be Cybertron."

"A while," said First Aid hesitantly, before expanding, "Just shy of a week. You were quite injured. Hoist stabilised you." He quietly moved over to check Mirage's readings.

"Oh lovely," Mirage muttered and lay back, not that he could sit up too far in his condition. His arm was back on, he noticed. That was progress, at least. "How soon before I am whole?"

"I need you awake for the rest of the reattachments, so I had to wait for you to wake up, but uhm," First Aid hedged, face buried down in the electrogram monitor. He did not hedge very well.

Tired and in pain, Mirage demanded, "Out with it."

"Jazz would like to talk with you. Alone. You don't have to. You're my patient. I'll ask him to go if you want," First Aid explained, wringing his hands.

"Oh, let Jazz come," Mirage said, a bit theatrically. He looked down at where his legs should have been. "I suspect he wants a captive audience."

"You're sure?" First Aid asked anxiously. His earnest concern was charming yet grating all at the same time.

"Quite," Mirage said curtly.

"I'll monitor your readings remotely. I'll be here in under ten seconds if you need anything," First Aid promised.

Jazz was in as soon as First Aid was out. He made looking friendly and casual look easy and unforced. Perhaps he really had nothing but good intentions, but Mirage would wait and see for now. Jazz greeted, "You feelin' alright?"

"My legs are off," Mirage observed wryly, "I know that I look fabulous in any light, but do I look 'all right' to you?"

"Heh. Guess not," Jazz replied. He grabbed a chair, spun it around, and sat down straddling it. "So you're from Polyhex, huh?"

Mirage chuckled and needled just a bit, "Took you long enough to figure that out. Highbrow knew, but then he had to go get lost in space. Dreadfully inconvenient. Mmm. Yes. Duke of the Far Reaches. Dukedoms are usually reserved for royalty, but the Far Reaches has always been considered a lesser post, suitable for a noble."

"Duke," Jazz repeated, looking at Mirage speculatively.

"I have often told you I am of one of the noblest and most ancient houses," Mirage said, matter of fact, "Hardly my fault if you heard what you wanted to hear. The Polyhexian line is very, very old, you know. Founded by right of conquest, not bought into it with money like some of the more recent lines."

"Yeah, about that..." Jazz said slowly, "You heard about that new power generator we just put in?"

"I suspect it is overstated. Solve all of our energy problems forever... not likely," Mirage speculated.

Jazz said, "But even if it doesn't. Mirage, this is... a mop-up job, not a war anymore. Now ain't like it was even, oh, a decade ago. Sure, the Decepticons cause trouble, real trouble, but... I think we're going to live to see peace, and it ain't gonna be the same peace we had before. You won't be Duke of the Far Reaches, Mirage. Are you going to be okay with that?"

"Ah," Mirage said, and he shut his optics off. He was developing quite a splitting headache, one that threatened to overshadow the dull ache that suffused his body. "I will carry on and endure. Those of lesser breeding may deny me my due, but it makes it no less mine. Change all the buildings, change all the names, change the government - it matters not. I will... cope and do what I can. My titles may be defunct, but a substantial amount of capital remains to my name."

"That's nice," Jazz deadpanned and then sobered, "but about that whole once a vorn thing - "

"I do not enjoy killing. It is a detestable thing. If it is against the new laws of a new Cybertron, I suppose I will not have any trouble," Mirage said, coughing a bit. Removed from the fight, he supposed he could say that and mean it. To even get caught up in the rush of battle lust was unseemly, however, something for those made of baser metal and coded with coarser instincts. As far as his own instincts went, Mirage accounted himself both cursed and lucky that hiding the bodies was one of them. When he reigned as Duke of the Far Reaches, others had thought him soft on criminals, not understanding that he was merely tidy. No, Mirage would have no trouble with the new laws.

Jazz asked, "So it's just duty? Nothing more?"

Mirage sniffed frostily, "Don't tell me you believe that Death Knight dreck, about Polyhexian nobility being hardwired to kill." He hated the slurs, but what he hated most about the insults was the element of truth they contained.

Jazz said, "I don't know. Should I?"

Mirage said, "As there are no longer any nobles, Polyhexian or otherwise, I scarcely think it matters now."

"Glad to hear that," Jazz said quietly, studying Mirage, "You're still meeting with Smokescreen for regular psych evals. Should have started ages ago."

"Highbrow understood that a gentleman may be of a certain temperament," Mirage said, frowning, "Smokescreen is a fool with his money but not with people. Surely, if I am forced into compulsory psych evals, he will figure out the reason why I am being compelled to attend."

"That's why Intel chiefs like me put in forged voluntary requests for preventative maintenance if cranky spooks won't volunteer for psych evals on their own. You're going, Mirage," Jazz explained. His optic band really had the wickedest twinkle to it.

"I see," Mirage said. Being treated the same as anyone else rankled him, even if that was the mandate of the new era. Being tricked and entrapped stung more. He called First Aid, who chased out Jazz with an awkward protective furore.

First Aid offered shyly, as if he feared he was imposing, "Hound wants to see you, to thank you, and Cliffjumper wants to know how you became so wrecked up while on leave."

"Oh, by all means, send them in," Mirage granted magnanimously, "I do believe that I can handle a visit from my adoring public."

* * *

A scant few decades later, Cybertron closed in on itself and grew smaller. The hoi poloi called him a 'bulk' and a 'guzzler' for clinging to his old body. Mirage called it 'classic' and 'timeless', though if his sources were correct, and they usually were, downsizing would soon become mandatory. Was this why he had fought? Mirage supposed so. His Cybertron had peace at last.

He glanced over at the news holo absently. His investments in low rent housing were proving disgustingly lucrative, despite the crime wave, spurred by warring Predacon gangs, whelps and upstarts the lot of them.

Mirage considered just what year it was and turned the holo off.

**The End**

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I've generally seen fanfic of Mirage's pre-war noble past written as him living in luxury and not doing much of anything. That's certainly a valid take. However, we really don't see much of what pre-war life was like on the Generation 1 cartoon. We see the dock-workers Ariel, Orion Pax, and Dion. We know that Skyfire and Starscream were scientists. However, we have no idea what kind of government Cybertron had. In the Generation 1 Marvel comics, there are indications that government style varied from city-state to city-state, and that is what I used here. For this fic, in some city-states, nobility mattered more than others, and in some city-states, nobles had more responsibilities than others. So I played around with the concept of Mirage having been from a city-state wherein nobles were expected to be martially competent and hands-on in ruling their subjects, though he's not particularly pleased about it. I also explored the concept of Transformers have functions, things that they are meant, by design, to be doing. How does that mess with their heads when they find their functions morally repugnant? I wouldn't consider this fic to be in continuity with any of my other fics.

Blaze: He's a Generation 2 Sparkabot, but there's no reason he could not have been around in G1. He's a hit-man who used to be an engineer.

Excellion: He's based off of Cybertron Excellion, whose bio says, "More than once, he has retrieved vital information from within a Decepticon stronghold, or quickly and quietly disposed of a particularly annoying enemy agent." I could have made up an OC from scratch as crowd filler, but importing Excellion was just as easy.

Repugnus: He shows up in a Generation 1 Season 3 toy commercial with Rodimus Prime and gets the very brief backstory that the Monsterbots were made in an Autobot lab. Wouldn't it have been grand if they had been on the cartoon proper? Oh well.

Religion: The Generation 1 cartoon is very secular. Primus, a mainstay of other continuities, does not appear at all in the cartoon, not even as a mention. That's why this fic mentions that the churches put in by Rodimus's rebuilding efforts are non-denominational and more meant for visiting aliens; the cartoon does not indicate that religion is particularly important to most Transformers. This is also why Rodimus was confused about being asked for a blessing. I tried to subtlety portray religion as in decline due to their long, stagnant war. Even Mirage is more or less just going through the motions for the sake of going through the motions. On Earth, with humans, religion was very important to the nobility in certain time periods. This fic does briefly mention Xal, who was a mysterious figure mentioned in Generation 2, but I needed a name, and Xal was as good as anything.

Lasercore: In the Generation 1 cartoon, the lasercore seemed to be the centre of life for a Transformer. Later continuities have retconned in sparks, but a few scenes in the cartoon directly contradict the concept of sparks. In one episode, Seaspray and other Transformers express doubt as to whether or not they have souls; if they had sparks, they would know they had souls for certain. The Combaticons are not stored as sparks-in-a-box; they're stored as personality components in a filing cabinet. Optimus Prime has no spark in his chest when it is opened; no Transformer shows a spark when his chest is opened. So this fic uses lasercores. There was no reason, story-wise, that sparks were required.

Book lungs: A book lung is a type of respiration organ used for atmospheric gas exchange, as most lungs are, and it is found in arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions. I gave Gyconi book lungs so he could have weird alien physiology.

Yellow Optics: Mirage has blue optics and a silver face in the cartoon. Sometimes he's drawn with yellow optics and a blue half-mask. I wanted to play around with the less-common look as sort of an alter-ego for Mirage, a piece of the past he tries to forget.

Lockdown: He's based off Animated Lockdown. He fit the overall aesthetic of the fic well, so I used him.

Azure: It is a planet that first showed up in Classics.

Chomskian china: The Chomskians are an alien species that showed up in IDW Generation 1. I gave them china.

Hellhound: They are robotic hunting dogs that showed up in Marvel Generation 1. The Decepticons used them sometimes.

Hand-to-hand combat: One of Mirage's bios says he's one of the best hand-to-hand combatants that the Autobots have. It's a shame that so rarely comes up!

Syk: It's a drug from Marvel Generation 1.

Cannibaron: He's a dead Decepticon in the Hall of Heroes in the Generation 1 cartoon, one who probably dates back to the Second War, as opposed to the modern conflict. There is basically no background on him. So in this fic, Mirage killed him for mistreating his subjects and took his title.

Cyber violin: Rattrap mentions this musical instrument in Beast Wars.

Power generator: In "Grimlock's New Brain", the Autobots set up a power generator that was supposed to supply Cybertron with clean energy forever! I like to imagine that Optimus Prime broke it when he came back to life, and that's why we never heard about it again. ;)


End file.
